Minneapolis clears homeless encampment in Phillips neighborhood
MINNEAPOLIS — The City of Minneapolis is clearing a homeless encampment in the Phillips neighborhood Thursday morning, days after a woman was shot nearby.
The encampment was near 28th Street and Columbus Avenue.
A woman in her 20s suffered life-threatening injuries from a shooting on Saturday evening near the intersection. Police at the time said that she was taken to a local hospital, and no one had been arrested.
Local officials are anxiously awaiting a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on the most significant case involving homelessness in decades.
The court will rule on the constitutionality of local laws that ban public camping, and whether arresting people for sleeping in public places violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
"The challenges we face are anything from the drug epidemic, abuse, trafficking," said Rich Melzer, CEO of YouthLink MN, a youth services organization in Minneapolis. "Adding this nuance of criminalizing homeless people for sleeping in public, it's going to change and challenge us in ways that can't be predicted."